Trump’s Self-Serving Tweets Angrily Call for the Death Penalty After Terror Attack in New York

n April 19, 1989, 28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili, a white woman, was jogging in Manhattan's Central Park when she was hit over the head with a rock, tied-up, gagged, and raped. It was a crime that would shock the nation, and deepen the already rancorous divisions in racially divided New York.

“Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police!” the ads read. They were a thinly-veiled reference to the suspected perpetrators of the crime, 15-year-old Yusef Salaam, 14-year-old Raymond Santana, 14-year-old Kevin Richardson, 15-year-old Antron McCray and 16-year-old Korey Wise.

Four of the boys were black, one was Latino.

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In other words, they were black and brown children who had allegedly assaulted a white woman.

In Donald Trump’s America, black and brown people deserve the death penalty. White people get thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/b9nt6FqoJS

Trump never apologized, and even now, still says the boys were guilty.

Yusef Salaam believes Trump is partly to blame for their false imprisonment. “He was the fire starter,” Salaam said to The Guardian. “Common citizens were being manipulated and swayed into believing that we were guilty.”

“He has this penchant for what you might call otherising,” D’Antonio said. “I think he knew what he was doing by taking a side, and I think he knew he was aligning himself with law and order, especially white law and order. I don’t think that he was consciously saying ‘I’d like to whip up racial animosity’, but his impulse is to run into conflict and controversy rather than try to help people understand what might be going on in a reasoned way.”

On Tuesday, Sayfullo Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan plowed into a crowded bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring 11. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Saipov, who survived, reportedly asked for an ISIS flag in his room.